


there will be witnesses

by lyhoradka



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, No Plot/Plotless, Slight spoilers for S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24010621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyhoradka/pseuds/lyhoradka
Summary: Benzaiten says “Dancing makes me feel free,” half-joking, with the kind of self-deprecation that would get him mistaken for his sibling; but what he means is, “Dancing takes me away.”
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	there will be witnesses

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote most of this years ago, recently rediscovered it and decided it wasn't in too terrible shape. be warned that this is just about the trauma of ben's death, and what that meant for juno before we even knew that ben existed. enjoy!

I am still trying to forgive the world  
for not letting me live forever.  
When I was younger I thought death  
was just misunderstanding.  
I thought when bad things happen  
there will be witnesses.

(Nancy Huang, “Nyquil Dreams,” from _Favorite Daughter_ )

Benzaiten says “Dancing makes me feel free,” half-joking, with the kind of self-deprecation that would get him mistaken for his sibling; but what he means is, “Dancing takes me away.”

When they were children they had cleared out their toys and pushed the chair to the side, the middle of their room now a makeshift stage. Ben had pretended that he knew the steps – he’d made them up on the spot, and stumbled, and Juno saw right through him, but hadn’t said a word – and then spun around so quickly that it made him sick. It is one of the few things that Juno is certain he remembers.

Juno speaks to no one at the funeral, but Sasha finds him afterward. He holds up a hand to silence her before she even says a word, and it takes him far too long to realize that she hadn’t even opened her mouth. She sits beside him. In profile, with that proud nose and sharp cheekbones, she looks like Annie Wire back to haunt him. Eyes closed, the illusion is even more painful. Annie’s eyes were lighter, and for a breathless moment there is no way to tell the difference between the sisters.

Except that Annie is in the grave, five tombstones down from where Ben now lies.

They sit together for so long that Juno wants to scream. It is the easiest thing in the world to forget that Benzaiten is dead. He manages it every minute. He does not know a universe in which Ben does not exist, and does not think that he is capable of learning it.

“I left –” Juno’s voice is rusty; he clears his throat and tries again. “I left him in that house. No, I – I get it, he chose to stay. He wouldn’t fucking come with me. But I left him behind, and I didn’t come back in time.” He doesn’t know if Sasha can understand him through the tears that are drenching her jacket. She cradles him close, one hand across his back and the other buried deep in his hair, anchoring him. Later he will notice that she is crying too. “I just want to come back,” he tells her, as though in prayer. “I just want to fucking come back to him.”

 _Tough shit_ , Ben would say. _Let’s dance it out._

~

It’s easier, in some ways, to look into the mirror after he gets his nose broken so badly that it permanently changes shape. He doesn’t have to ask _is this what Ben would have looked like?_ because the answer is no.

 _I’m sorry the doctor couldn’t save your eye_ , Peter Nureyev says with warmth in his voice so deep that Juno is afraid of drowning in it – but then, wouldn’t that be for the best? He closes his remaining eye and wishes for his brother so suddenly and fiercely that it shocks him. Juno doesn’t want Nureyev, doesn’t want to leave Mars, doesn’t want to forget the inescapable heat of his own blood dripping down his cheek like lava. He wants his brother’s smile and his brother’s hands and his brother’s presence. He wants it all with the insistence and desperation of a child reaching for the only world he can understand.

Once, in the middle of a summer that felt like honey pooling in-between their shoulder blades, they got drunk together on a Thursday afternoon. They were fifteen. Ben had been growing his hair out, and it hung like a curtain over his neck as he threw his head back to let the rest of the whiskey trickle into his mouth. “Hey,” Juno swatted at him, laughing. “You’re greedy, you know that?”

Ben leveled him with a somber stare. “Older brother’s privilege,” he announced, and finished the rest.

“Fifteen fucking minutes!” Juno pointed his finger in the air, reconsidered, and shoved his shoulder into his brother’s when it seemed that Ben wasn’t planning on feeling remorse. “You have fifteen minutes over me, you ass.”

“Yeah, that’s fifteen minutes of life experience that you’ll never make up.” Ben laughed and stumbled to his feet, eyes bright and mouth stretched in the galaxy’s best smile. “Face it, baby bro, I’m always gonna be older than you – life’s a bitch that way.” _Dance it out._

~

Juno promises to leave Hyperion city ( _oh, Juno_ , Peter will say to him one day, fitting their hands together like puzzle pieces – _I was asking you to stay_ ), but on their short ride to the hotel, his finger traces over the seat in the shape of the path through the cemetery that would take him to his brother’s grave. He hasn’t been there in weeks.

If he leaves tomorrow morning, he may not get a chance to visit it in years. Maybe not ever.

Later, he will tell himself that he hadn’t made up his mind until – after. After Peter drew him under the scratchy hotel sheets. After they dissected each other’s hearts on that bed, with only half the lights on. If he pretends that it was after, then the whole thing seems less premeditated. Like he’s committed manslaughter instead of murder when he left Peter bleeding.

Ben would be so furious.

It takes Juno another month to scrape up the nerve to walk to the cemetery, as though afraid that Ben would be there to chide him for his cowardice. (He would give anything in the world for that to be the case). It’s early in the morning, and the place is empty.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, into the silence.

Ben’s tombstone stands still and silent, unimpressed.

It doesn’t look any warmer the next day that Juno visits, or the next. But – Juno is there, still. He doesn’t leave his brother. Not again.

And every time, a figure watches him, their chin in their hands. Contemplating. Today, they snap a picture of Juno’s retreating back, and attach it to a message with a quick glance to their comm unit. Juno is almost completely out of sight when the answer arrives with a soft ping.

_TAKANO: Good._

**Author's Note:**

> [say hi](http://lyhoradka.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


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